EDHA reverses self, shoots down Executive Bill

By Augustine E. Aghoghovwia

The Navigator Newspaper

There have been palpable indications since the last couple of weeks that honourable members of the State House of Assembly may have begun realizing that the people of the state, who voted them into positions, were not happy with their actions or inactions as far as law-making and oversight responsibilities were concerned.

​Before Wednesday, the 9th of October, 2012, all manners of anti-people bills, from the absurd to the ridiculous, were passed in the House, simply because the State Governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, wanted them passed.  The true origins of these replicated bills could be traced to Lagos State where socio-economic, cultural and other factors are different from what obtains in Edo State.

​One of such anti-people considerations was a Bill for a law to make provisions for the consolidation of all land-based rates and charges payable to Edo State into a single charge to be called Land Use Charge, to make provision for the levying and collection of the charge and for purposes connected therewith.

​Considering the details of the Bill vis-à-vis our already over-burdened Edo people, it was clearly unfriendly and exploitative.  Among others, the Bill envisaged that upon passage by the House, government agents would enter, inspect and assess property of individuals, request for documents, take photographs and make copies of such documents as they consider necessary for the inspection, after which the owner of the property in the state would be liable to pay a Land Use Charge in respect of the property.

​The major consideration of the Governor’s Bill was to go beyond civil servants and other taxable federal government’s property to extort money from property owned by Edo people.

​As usual, the Majority Leader in the House, who has all along been the Governor’s mouthpiece in presenting mostly indefensible anti-people bills, Hon. Philip Shaibu, was at his game again trying, this time unsuccessfully, to explain the merits, if any, of the Bill.  Of course, three things were against him: his intellectual limitation, his deficiency in logic and unpersuasive debating skills.  Perhaps, Shaibu’s greatest albatross, on that day, was probably his colleagues’ determined resolve to stop the observed arrogance of the Majority Leader while delivering even uncoordinated messages from the Executive arm.

​Apart from the Speaker, Rt. Hon. Uyi Igbe and, perhaps, Hon. Johnson Oghuma, who hails from the same Edo North senatorial district as the Governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole and Hon. Shaibu, every other person at plenary that day, when the Bill was being considered, saw the demerits and irrelevance of the Bill and shot it down accordingly.

​The Speaker, Rt. Hon. Igbe, tried desperately to make the honourable members change their minds on the consideration of the Governor’s Bill, more likely because he wanted to please the executive in an effort to continue to save his job as presiding officer of the House, but failed as the others did not bulge.  And so, the Bill collapsed and died!

​From this development, can it be said that the Edo State House of Assembly has eventually woken up from its slumber to assert its authority, civic and democratic responsibility?  Time will tell.

​Critics of the House have recently been piqued by the almost subservient relationship the legislative body has had with the executive arm, when the lawmakers fret before the governor.  However, some very critical sources in the House were of the view that the lawmakers “are rebelling because the executive arm did not accompany the recently passed supplementary bill with enough largesse for the ACN members in the House.”

​However, there are positive signals pointing to the fact that the State Assembly is changing.  Only recently, the Honourable Speaker, Rt. Hon. Igbe, reversed the decision made earlier which led to his removal of the House members of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, from House Committees’ chairmanship positions.  It was one decision roundly criticized by stakeholders across the state and beyond.

​The PDP legislators, Hon. Patrick Iluobe, Hon. Victor Edoror, Hon. Kingsley Ehigiamusoe, and Hon. Emmanuel Okoduwa, were all restored as chairmen Ethics and Privileges, House Services, Public Petitions, Arts and Culture Committees respectively.  

It is hoped that the State Assembly will continue to sustain this tempo and stick to the bidding of Edo people who elected them and whose overall interests they are constitutionally bound to protect.